Amazon Web Services (AWS) has entered into a partnership to develop a new carbon removal material for use in its data centers.

The company has partnered with startup Orbital Materials, which has, through artificial intelligence (AI), developed a carbon-filtering substance for use in data centers.

"It's like a sponge at the atomic level," Orbital Materials Jonathan Godwin told Reuters. "Each cavity in that sponge has a specific size opening that interacts well with CO2, that doesn’t interact with other things."

Orbital will initially pilot the material at one of its partners data centers at the start of 2025.

According to Ortibal, the new material amounts to an estimated 10 percent of the hourly charge to rent a GPU chip for training powerful AI, which is much more cost-effective than other carbon offsets.

The agreement will allow Orbital to use AWS technology and make its open-source AI available to AWS customers. The startup aims to work with AWS to test more AI-generated materials to address water use and chip cooling in data centers.

In a statement, Howard Gefen, general manager of AWS Energy & Utilities, said the partnership would encourage sustainable innovation.

Amazon has invested in several carbon removal and sequestration projects. Last year, the company purchased 250,000 tons of carbon removal over 10 years and invested in a direct air capture business.

Earlier this year, DCD exclusively reported that Meta is developing its own direct air capture systems using data center waste heat. Google's Alphabet was also exploring the technology, spinning it out as 280 Earth.

That company is now building a carbon capture site opposite Google's Dalles data center.